


The Evening I Should Not Have Taken A Taxi

by AnJoanGrey



Category: Star Trek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 08:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12577788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnJoanGrey/pseuds/AnJoanGrey
Summary: The taxi driver thought I was *her*. Except I wasn't. He had her ring. A Halloween Story.*This is an original horror story, written for the sole delight of my dear fans on Halloween Day.





	The Evening I Should Not Have Taken A Taxi

That evening shall remain engraved in my mind forever. Whenever I revisit the memory of it, I just want to… reconstruct it somehow and pretend it didn’t happen, but it did. I only have to look at the ring on my left hand to… be sure.

I shall be honest from the very beginning: I do not believe in any supernatural powers such as gods, angels and other… stuff. I was raised in a fairly religious family, with my parents occasionally attending Sunday service and commemorating the dead through the local custom of coronach. But that was all. I never had the proper heart for religion; I was too busy studying computer science and listening to symphonic music as my major hobby; there was simply no place left for anything else. I wanted to be clear about this – because nothing I will further narrate has any connection with logic and common sense.

Ever since I got a smarter… smartphone, _it_ had been pestering me about walking those 6,000 steps a day, so I tried to squeeze them in my already hectic daily schedule. There was no way to accomplish this – other than simply _walking_ to work. The building I work in is located in a Commercial Activity Zone, pretty close to my house. My neighbourhood and the famous Sema Park are connected by one street. It bears the pompous name of “General Petre Popovat Street” – I just hate the sonority of that, gosh! Anyway – I gave it another name in my mind – the _Impossible Street_ , because what I have grown to observe and to live whilst walking on it – defies the possibility of understanding, of… meaning.

It is long since I stopped looking for meaning. I simply live, fight, wait and write about. Otherwise, I would go mad.

Weather in this city has been absolutely crazy and unpredictable as of late – sometimes I feel I am living in Ireland (sadly, I do not). Last week it has been raining, raining, heavily raining. Don’t imagine the beautiful, cool, refreshing autumn rain which enhances the colours of the trees. No, imagine that type of rain which transforms every single inch of sidewalk into a muddy mess and you have no choice but to walk among the cars to avoid getting to work as if having just taken a bath in a pigsty.

Last Friday, I worked until 9 PM, hoping it would stop raining and I would avoid getting myself all wet – no such luck. I had to walk home, faithful to my oath to never take a subway or bus, unless there’s a war unfolding, a tornado or very bad blizzard. Since it was only raining – and I did have an umbrella, I had no excuse.

And so… it began.

First, my coat got all wet.

Then, I stepped into two separate holes in the sidewalk, all filled with water and mud and I got wet up to my bones. I was shivering and cursing and decidedly making a mental note about the necessity of stupid oaths. I placed the smartphone in a plastic bag in my purse, to avoid getting it wet.

I stopped a taxi – I could only endure so much.

I shivered again at the change of temperature – it would be a short ride to my apartment, but I promised myself to reward the driver properly.

I had closed the door and given him the address, but he was just staring at me, half turned in his seat.

“You are not… her,” he murmured.

“Huh?”

Fear, pure and simple, started to build upon hearing that cryptic sentence.

“I thought you were her…”

“I am sorry, perhaps I should…”

I had already started opening the door in order to get out of the car because he was really starting to freak me out there. He lifted his hands in surrender.

“Please! Don’t go. Please.”

“Sir, what is going on? Aren’t you feeling well?” I asked worriedly this time, all the knowledge of first aid techniques rushing forth into my consciousness. What if this man was hurt? He seemed on the verge of losing it anyway, looking at me with despair.

“Okay, no, I do not seem to be the person you were waiting,” I said, trying to talk as calmly as possible. “Are you alright? What is going on here? Who were you waiting for? Have you been robbed? Do you want me to call the police?” I inquired, already digging after my smartphone.

He gestured for me to stop.

“Robbed… you could say that… She told me she didn’t have any money but left me this ring as a token and said she would return in a few moments with the money.”

“She? Who IS she?” I asked again, once more fearing for this man’s sanity.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was then when I realized I could not leave this man alone, on the verge of losing his mind and perhaps very close to a heart attack.

“I am going to go buy you a coffee from _Pierre’s Boutique_ ,” I told him.

“No, please. Don’t go.”

It was the second time he was asking me not to go.

“Come on, we’ll go together. Let’s walk, I have a big enough umbrella. Park the car on the sidewalk, and if… well, if _she_ returns, she will see the car with the engine on and will wait for you. For us. If she is honest enough to return, then she will also be honest and kind enough to wait for you. Besides, we’ll only be gone for, like, five minutes.”

He seemed to find my arguments logical – because he did as I told him to. He parked on the sidewalk, leaving the emergency lights and the engine on and he finally stepped out of the car, and I did so as well.

He took a deep breath.

He was young, about my age, the regular taxi-driver wearing a hat and a hoodie over the official company shirt. What I mean to point out is that he did not look delusional or… well, _high_. No, he looked ordinary. He just followed me to _Pierre’s_ trailer, the portable coffee shop all the employees working in the Sema Park buildings appreciated. He seemed… somehow out of place, hugging himself with a terrorized look.

I bought two large coffees with extra-milk and gave him one.

“Want to go back to the car? Or we can stay here. We have a good view of the street and of the car, in case your mystery-passenger returns.”

“Here,” he immediately said, taking deep breaths of air and sitting down on a dry piece of concrete he had found near the coffee shop. I had no other choice but to sit near him. What was I getting myself into? No idea; it was just this feeling overwhelming me – I could not leave this man alone in this state.

I had mentioned he was young and you may smile; it was not at all what you may have thought. I hadn’t had a sudden crush on the man, nor had I experienced abrupt love at first sight as in movies – I don’t even believe in such stuff. I was simply overwhelmed by worry for that person, I felt an irrepressible urge to look after him, compensated by an equally irrepressible urge to just run the hell away from there, to just… go home.

“You need to tell me what happened,” I coaxed him as gently as I could. If I was to help in any way, I needed to have all facts.

He lit a cigarette and took a sip of warm coffee.

“Three hours ago, you know – when most people leave home from work, I parked my car in the taxi station in Pipera Office Buildings area. I thought I would get a good customer. But strangely, everyone avoided me, people just went to the other cabs or to the bus station or subway. Then, a young lady came to me – about your height and stature – this is why – why… uh. This is why I thought you were her at the beginning. That perhaps you had just put on a warmer coat over that thin dress.”

“So, she was wearing a thin dress.”

“And she was coughing.”

I wrapped my coat tighter around myself as the image of a coughing young woman in a thin dress started to form inside my mind.

“So, what did you do?”

“Well, I… she got inside the car, she sort-of cuddled onto the back seat, in the corner, you know… and she just coughed for a while. I asked if she was alright. Finally, she replied that she was alright, and that she apologized, she was having a bad cold. She kept holding a scarf to her mouth, you know?”

“She didn’t want to pass the germs on to you, I gather.”

“It seemed very much so. But then I never got to see her mouth, half of her face was always covered with that scarf, gosh, it terrifies me…”

I rubbed my face with my hands, every now and then he would become a bit incomprehensive and I struggled to keep track of the timeline.

“So, she got into your car and covered her face with a scarf and coughed. I am sorry but there is nothing extraordinary or terrifying up to here. It was actually very nice of her to have covered her mouth in order not to give you the cold.”

“So, you think I am crazy.”

“No, but perhaps you are exaggerating a bit.”

He silently reached inside his pocket and, with infinitely slow gestures, he pulled out a delicate silky scarf, white with owl motives. I don’t know why I instantly felt shivers. There was something… something about the way he was holding it, as if it caused him nausea and dread just to touch it. He passed it to me, visibly grateful to get rid of it, to stop touching it.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, taking the scarf and trying to sound nonchalant, but I must now admit that in that very second, I felt like I was about to throw up, my stomach acting up severely. Or had I started to exhibit the symptoms of severe stress? “The scarf. It’s dirty. Have you dropped it in the mud?”

“It’s blood,” he said dryly.

I instantly freaked out.

I dropped – no, I threw the thing away.

We both stared at it, none of us having the courage to touch it anymore.

“How do you know it’s blood? Perhaps it’s just dirty,” I tried to suggest, the rational part of me refusing to give in.

“I saw it coming out of her nose.”

“Jesus Christ!!! You gave me one hell of a scare! So her nose was bleeding, why the hell didn’t you say so? Did you take the woman to the hospital?”

He did not look at me; he just stared blankly in the direction of the scarf – which, despite the wind, continued to remain right there in front of us on the sidewalk, not being carried away. My stomach clenched.

“She may have had tuberculosis or God knows what other disease. It may be contagious. You shouldn’t have touched the damn thing.”

“I know,” he replied after a moment of silence. “I know.”

“So, what happened to her? Where did you take her?”

Darker thoughts were by now starting to lurk through my mind. What if the shivering man I was sitting with had actually done something to the woman, something abominable and unthinkable and he was now in some kind of shock? Once more, I regretted not having dug after my smartphone in my backpack. Perhaps it was time I called the police.

“She gave me the address – 41D Popovat Street.”

“Okay… right across the street from your car, no?”

“Yes.”

“And?” I asked, growing impatient and gesturing for him to continue.

“And I parked my car where you found me. She then began to say that, well, she did not have any money with her but that she will go inside and pick some and return to pay me.”

“Oh, the usual bullshit,” I exclaimed, getting angry. The mystery woman was nothing but a pathetic little thief after all, I thought.

“No, not the usual. I protested to her idea, saying that it was not nice and that she shouldn’t have gotten into a cab – especially for such a distance – if she had no money – and that I would not allow her to rob me. She leaned towards me, her hand extended, offering me something. I asked what was that, and since her face was now closer to me – you know, I had turned towards the back seat – I could see the blood coming out of her nose.”

“She gave you something?”

“She covered her nose and mouth better with that…thing,” the driver said pointing towards the scarf stubbornly remaining at our feet. “And she gave me this small ring which she was wearing.”

“Huh? She gave you a ring?”

“Yes. She said that she does not have any intention to trick me and that she leaves me her ring to keep until she returns with my money.”

“You took it…” I said – not a question, but a confirmation. And my stomach just clenched once more.

“I took it! I took it. I was angry! I just wanted my money and I wanted her out of my car – she was stinking.”

“I am thinking she never returned with the money…” I murmured, putting two and two together. “Where’s the ring now?”

He silently extended his left hand towards me, with a slow, tired gesture. His fist was clenched and I had the distinct feeling that he took forever to open it, relaxing the muscles of his hand one by one, excruciatingly slow, to show me a small white ring he was holding – no, better said, he was holding on to. He had effectively squeezed it so hard, that the small gem stones had hurt him and made his palm bleed – he did not seem to mind, nor feel any discomfort.

We stared at it silently, just like we had previously stared at the scarf.

“Ppplease. Take. It.”

He had said that with despair.

I took it.

I held it tight in my hand and turned my face from the man, standing up and rushing towards a trash can near Pierre’s trailer. I threw up spasmodically.

I almost… I don’t know… I was expecting to turn towards the man and discover that he was simply not there anymore, that he had vanished somehow, that all this was just a hallucination of some sort, after one too many cases solved during work. But I felt a mild touch on my shoulder and when I turned, the taxi-driver was offering me a small pack of napkins.

“Thanks,” I murmured, feeling miserable and sick. “Sorry. I think the coffee did not agree with me.”

“I know… how it feels.”

“Perhaps we should go to the hospital…” I said, feeling silly and stupid at the same time. I had thrown up because of that distinct feeling of horror which had overwhelmed me. “No, I’m an idiot. Let’s go. Let’s go to her house and see what the hell is going on there. And get your money.”

I was feeling brave! If I only knew…

“I… don’t want… I don’t know… We shouldn’t.”

“Yes, perhaps not. Perhaps we shouldn’t. But we will. We will ensure a good night’s sleep with no nightmares. A woman coughing blood, a dirty scarf, a ring, you getting robbed of your money. Really, what the hell is this nonsense? It is not extraordinary. It is bullshit. Let’s go,” I said.

I leaned down and picked the dirty scarf and shoved it into my bag. We were going to return it to the lady.

We headed towards the house on foot, without talking. I was determined to understand what the hell was going on here; I felt him shivering near me.

"You are cold, no?"

"Very."

"And afraid?"

"No." He took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Why? What is the worst thing that can happen?"

"She looked... I don't know how to say. She looked fragile, vulnerable. And she also looked... honest. I do not believe that she wanted to trick me. I believe that something may have happened to her inside that house. Perhaps there was no one at home and she fainted or something. Perhaps we should call the police and an ambulance."

Those were very logical assumptions, but we were already in front of the house. Without further thinking, I just rang the door.

The metallic ringing sound had the effect of a cold shower upon both of us. We looked at each other, feeling awkward and terrified and wondering what in the name of God we were trying to do here, two strangers – not knowing each other’s name – who were investigating a potentially dangerous situation on their own. We should have called the police. We should have called for an ambulance.

We stared at the door.

Complete silence – even the rain had stopped. I could hear the accelerated breath-rhythm of the taxi-driver. I could hear my own heart beating fast.

I was afraid.

Silence. Silence.

Silence.

No one came to open the door. No light inside the house was lit.

I wanted to finally start looking for my phone and do all those logical and constructive things, but next – my new friend’s hand reached up and rang the door for the second time.

Again, we were startled by the metallic sound.

Again, nothing happened.

So I rang for the third time, just because it felt stupidly right to do things three times.

A faint light was lit somewhere in the house, the front window showing us vague contours of what was behind the curtains. We looked at each other – now we’d done it! Whatever happened, we had to go with the flow, ask questions, offer to help, because it was very certain someone over there needed help.

I held the ring tighter in my hand.

Time was passing infinitely slow, and I was mad at me for being so painfully aware of it – me, who’d always say that times go by with the exact speed of 60 seconds per minute – well, right now I was aware of the passing of each damn second.

The door was being unlocked – I really didn’t know what I was expecting, but the truth was – when I finally saw The Person, I was shocked beyond belief – perhaps because I had formed so many expectations and a certain image in my mind which didn’t correspond to what I was seeing in the least.

At the door, there was a man dressed in pyjamas – roughly 60 years old, looking sleepy and obviously annoyed by our insistence.

“How may I help you?” he asked coldly, and I was sure that the last thing he wanted to do right then was to actually _help us_ with anything.

“Where is she??” my friend immediately yelled at him – and I so wanted to punch him for being so indelicate and careless – really, this was how you conducted an investigation? But then again, he had sort-of lost it, so it was understandable.

“I Am Sorry?” the man asked, frowning at both of us and taking a small step back, preparing to slam the door shut in our face.

“The woman. The woman I brought here, who went inside! What have you done with her?”

“What woman??”

He looked terrified and interested at the same time. I decided to speak up.

“Sir, my colleague, here, is a taxi driver. Earlier, he brought a woman to this address. She said she would be going inside for money to pay for the ride and she never came out. She seemed hurt so – we would like to make sure she is fine, first and foremost – and second, if possible, to avoid a quarrel, my friend would like to get paid.”

He blinked, he took a few deep breaths and I feared he was going to lose consciousness.

“A woman? You brought a woman to this address? And she went inside?”

“Yes!” my friend replied.

“Through this very door she went inside? You saw her yourself?”

“Yes!” he repeated.

“Please, come inside. There is no back door and if someone entered through this door, then they must be still inside,” the man uttered, his face now pale.

“We are NOT coming inside,” I said courageously.

“Please, you must,” he said in a highly agitated state of mind. “Imagine how it feels like, to be suddenly told that there is someone who went inside your house and to be completely unaware of it. I am turning all the lights on.”

“No Sir, we are not coming inside,” I repeated.

“Then I will come out and one of you can go and look. I will wait outside,” he said, almost begging us.

I gave him a dubious look.

“Okay. You two, stay here, I am going inside,” I decided. “Keep an eye on him,” I told my friend. Somehow, the house-owner did not seem as if he’d hurt us in any way, but precautions were necessary in the light of events. Exploring houses, especially old houses had always been one of my passions and I think that, in the current situation, curiosity pushed away fear.

I went inside.

Very honestly, it was just the simplest and most boring house I had ever seen – I don’t know what I was expecting, really. Not the long, dark hallway my imagination had built; nor the lugubrious windows or mystery doors. A plain-old living room with old, dusty furniture; a TV which had been forgotten on; a kitchenette which had not been touched by the hand of a cleaner in quite a long time; there were dirty dishes in the sink. An old “Arctic” refrigerator.

Two cats sleeping on a counter.

A bedroom with an unmade, still warm bed – yes, we had woken the owner up.

I started to feel guilty.

What if nothing of what the driver had told me was true and we were just freaking this man out with our story about a mystery intruder? Gosh! I must have been out of my mind!

I checked the bathroom, all the closets, there was absolutely no one else there, there were no hiding places and the only creepy thing I saw was a medium-sized cockroach.

Nothing else.

I returned to the two men who were waiting for me outside, they hadn’t exchanged a word, both of them staring blankly at the door.

“There Is No One Inside,” I said pointedly. “Are you sure this is the place? Or are we simply making a fool of ourselves?”

“This is the place,” he said shivering. “Tell him… show him the things.”

“Look, Sir. The woman left two things in my friend’s car before getting out of it and coming inside this very house.”

“What… things…?” he murmured.

“This scarf,” I said, shoving my hand in my bag and pulling the fabric out, showing it to him with impatient gestures.”

He placed one hand over his heart and I was quite sure he was going to collapse.

“Are you alright? Sir? Sir?”

He grimaced in pain.

“Oh God… call that ambulance now… quickly… he is having a heart attack!”

“Please no… I… where do you have this scarf from??” he asked, extending his hand to touch it but not actually doing it.

“From the woman which my friend drove here,” I repeated patiently. “She also gave my friend this ring,” I said, finally opening my fist and showing him the silver ring I had been keeping tight, so tight that it had harmed my palm.

He stared at the objects.

I was under the impression that he had transformed into a lifeless statue. He wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t blinking, he could not shift his gaze away from my palm.

Instinctively, my fingers closed around the ring.

The gesture abruptly reconnected him to reality.

He took my hand and opened my fist, exposing the ring again but not touching it.

“Where Do You Have This From?” he asked gravely, looking deeply into my eyes – and I started shivering.

“I have it – he has it from the woman which we brought here,” I repeated once more, tiredly.

“You brought a woman here. This evening. And she gave you this ring.”

“Yes. Do you know who this woman is? Have you seen this ring before? Can you shed one single ray of light upon this… _this_?”

He looked at my trembling friend, he then looked at me. He made a hesitant gesture to touch the ring, but left it in my palm, still, and I swear that time had stopped, just as my own heart seemed to have stopped.

“She is my wife,” he said on an even, emotionless tone. “She died three months ago. This was her favourite scarf. She loved owls. I buried her with it.”

He held my hand tighter.

“This is her engagement ring. She wore it to her grave.”

 

Darkness fell.

 

I woke up a couple hours ago morning in the ICU unit of Municipal Hospital which, mercifully, is not far from the doomed street. My friend, the taxi driver, is nowhere around. The cardiologist told me that I had been brought there in a state of extreme shock, with severe arrhythmia and a bad wound to the head caused by having lost consciousness. The consequences could have been more severe.

The ring is on my left hand.

They could not take it off.

I am not even trying.

Tomorrow, they will allow me to go home.

I will be going back to the house to return the ring and to talk to the man again, because such things just don’t happen in the year 2017. They do not happen. Someone is mocking at me.

I will tell you how it all went.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
